


oh, i met a superhero

by skyparents



Series: of jack o'lanterns and crescent moons (halloween 2019) [5]
Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: A Week of Halloween, But mostly fluff (I think), Debbie and Tammy are so in love and I will never be over it, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Halloween, Includes way more backstory than you could possibly need, Post-Canon, Post-Heist, The gang goes trick-or-treating, The one where Lou knew all along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 05:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21221462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyparents/pseuds/skyparents
Summary: “wait, are we all going trick-or-treating?” constance pops up by debbie’s elbow. when debbie only shrugs, the dark-haired girl joins the kids in a rather intense hunt for good superhero costumes. essentially an overgrown child herself, she fits right in, dragging nine-ball into the chaos with her, and they make their rounds in not one, not two, but three stores before they find everything they want. they spend half of it calling nonsensical things that debbie doesn’t understand back and forth to each other; it sort of makes debbie’s head hurt, a little (but she doesn’t mind as much as she should).or, the ocean's 8 ladies (plus tammy's kids) dress up as superheroes. also, constance has a lot of questions aboutjust howdebbie and tammy's relationship slow-built into what it is now.





	oh, i met a superhero

**Author's Note:**

> god, okay, this one was so fun to write! i have several thoughts in my head for what i believe could/should be canon as far as debbie and tammy's past and future, and this isn't even the one i like best, but... oh my god, it's up there. maybe i dove further into the relationship-building on this one than the prompt called for, but let's blame that one on maria, who sent in this prompt on cc and then let me bounce ideas off her and helped me brainstorm for several hours.
> 
> **prompt:** "o8 fluff the entire gang + tammy’s kids dress up as the avengers," followed up by a series of messages on twitter telling me who needed to dress up as who.
> 
> maybe i didn't stick entirely to just fluff, and i'm sorry for that, but maria needed a little bit of attacking here on this night.

It starts when Tammy brings her kids into the city to find the  _ perfect _ Halloween costumes. They want to be superheroes, all three of them – Derek picks Iron Man, and Tyler chooses Antman, and Maggie wants to be Spider-Gwen. It’s all very predictable, now that Debbie knows who’s on each of their lunchboxes.

Tammy stops by the loft first, which is a mistake. A mistake that turns into half of the group tagging along on a rather chaotic shopping trip, and Maggie tugging at Lou’s sleeve to ask if she’s going to come trick-or-treating with them. Debbie watches this rather bemusedly from halfway down the aisle, absolutely certain that Lou is going to find some way to backtrack out of answering the question. The blonde has never been great with kids – like Debbie, she’s not really sure what to do with them.

But some things have changed since Debbie was arrested, and that’s only made glaringly obvious when Lou nods absentmindedly.

“Yeah, of course, kiddo,” and she actually  _ ruffles _ Maggie’s hair. The four-year-old grins, insisting that means Lou needs to dress up, too, and tugging the woman in her leather jacket and combat boots around the store until they find the perfect costume. Debbie trails along in their wake and, somehow, winds up with Tyler’s hand in hers, and this, of course, turns out in  _ her _ getting assigned a costume, too. Tyler drops the package nonchalantly into the basket his mother is carrying around, and she doesn’t even bat an eye.

“Wait, are we  _ all _ going trick-or-treating?” Constance pops up by Debbie’s elbow. The girl is good at that, sneaking up on Debbie when she least expects it; Debbie still isn’t sure how she feels about that. She’s always been perceptive, and someone like Constance catching her off-guard is mostly disorienting.

When Debbie only shrugs, the dark-haired girl joins the kids in a rather intense hunt for good superhero costumes. Essentially an overgrown child herself, she fits right in, dragging Nine-Ball into the chaos with her, and they make their rounds in not one, not two, but  _ three _ stores before they find everything they want. They spend half of it calling nonsensical things that Debbie doesn’t understand back and forth to each other like, “This jacket is  _ perfect _ for Jubilee” and “The Avengers are  _ so _ overdone, we need some X-Men” and “Screw MCU Wanda, you’re going to be  _ comic _ Scarlet Witch.”

It sort of makes Debbie’s head hurt, a little. But she doesn’t mind as much as she should.

Before she and Lou got this team together, she never would have considered that the whole group of them might become something of a family. That they might each become so  _ important _ to her. It’s only been five months since the Met Gala, and the way they have all meshed so intricately together is entirely unexpected. She knew she would keep in touch with these women at least occasionally, some more than others, but  _ this… _ this is something she never saw coming.

By the time they leave the store with eleven Halloween costumes, some of which are to be created from a combination of others, the kids are starving and dragging their feet. Tammy doesn’t like to feed them fast food on a regular basis, but with Constance on their side, they end up at McDonald’s. Tasked with keeping them vaguely under control as Tammy waits in line, Debbie sits with her fingers laced neatly together on top of the table they’ve chosen. Maggie slides along the bench to put herself right next to Debbie, and clambers up to kneel there and put her face closer than could possibly be necessary.

“You’re my mommy’s girlfriend, right?” she asks, out of absolutely  _ nowhere. _

Startled, Debbie allows her eyes to widen just slightly. She doesn’t often let much more make it up to the surface, even around kids. “I… yes,” she answers, a bit hesitant. They’ve had this talk, sort of. Debbie has been introduced as such on at least one occasion, and has spent the night a handful of times and simply  _ been there, _ no real questions asked, in the morning. Struggling to think things through, she tries to determine if this is the  _ first _ time she has actually been left alone with Tammy’s children. This  _ her and Tammy _ thing, it’s new. Not exactly fragile – she thinks she feels more stable in it than she has ever felt about almost anything before – but definitely in that awkward beginning stage, where they’re still trying to navigate  _ exactly _ how it works.

Maggie nods wisely, solemn and serious. “Okay. You’re in love with her, right?”

“Um,” says Debbie. She doesn’t think she’s ever uttered something so uncertain in her life. She likes to present herself as put-together, confident, always knowing what to say and what to do. The question hangs in the air, waiting to be answered. How do kids just come out and  _ ask _ things like that with no warning at all?  _ You’re in love with her, right? _ “I’ll tell you a secret, okay? I think I am.”

Depositing himself into the chair across the table, Derek eyes her curiously. He’s the oldest, nine, and feels the most protective over his mother. He scares Debbie a little, in a way she can’t quite explain, even to herself. It’s something to do with the fact that she knew him, before, when he was very small. “You  _ think?” _ he repeats, skinny little arms crossed in front of his chest. “Were you before you went away, or not? Like when you used to come visit us sometimes?”

This, to Debbie’s dismay, gets Constance’s attention. “You used to visit Tammy?” Every word drips with curiosity, and as Debbie attempts to sidestep the question, the girl fires more at her, one after the other. This goes on until Tammy and Nine-Ball return, bearing trays laden with Happy Meals.

On Halloween, they all arrive at Tammy’s house one by one. The blonde is flustered when they start to appear, evidently stressed out by the amount of things she feels like she needs to do before it’s time to leave, though she relaxes a little when Debbie tugs her aside in the walk-in pantry to greet her properly. “I’m glad you’re here,” she acknowledges, very quietly, threading her fingers into Debbie’s hair. She can feel the smile curving Tammy’s lips when she kisses her again.

The kids have pumpkins to carve, before they can do anything else. For someone as perpetually stressed out as Tammy is, she often leaves things until the last moment. When Debbie says so, she receives a rather scathing look across the newspaper-covered table and looks back at her girlfriend – her  _ girlfriend, _ that’s new, too – innocently, holding the expression carefully until Tammy breaks eye contact again. Scooping all the seeds out of each pumpkin takes three pairs of little hands an eternity, which means that the second the knives are no longer required, Constance’s fingers close tight around Debbie’s elbow and Tammy’s wrist, and she all but drags them into the living room and presses them down onto the couch side by side.

“I need  _ details,” _ she demands. The others are already there, and Lou’s eyes flicker in recognition when Constance announces the purpose of the gathering. “On  _ you two. _ There’s obviously history, and I think you owe us an explanation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Debbie, deadpan (at the same time, Tammy protests weakly, “I don’t think we really  _ owe you _ anything,” which sort of cancels out Debbie pretending to be oblivious).

“History?” asks Rose distractedly. She’s been sitting cross-legged in an armchair for an hour now, carefully sewing pieces of various costumes together for the desired results where the kids were not able to find precisely what they wanted. She’s got a pair of glasses perched on the bridge of her nose and another propped on top of her head, and doesn’t even look up to ask the question.

Constance spins to face her, gesturing to the older woman triumphantly as if to say,  _ See? _ “Yeah,  _ history _ . Like before Deb got locked up, she used to visit here. Derek dropped  _ that _ bomb the other day. You know, you guys just… got together. No questions asked. And I think it’s time you told us how that happened, ’cause I was pretty sure Tammy was married.”

“I’ve been divorced for three years,” Tammy says smoothly, which does absolutely nothing to deter Constance. “It’s really not anyone’s business to know our perso–”

“Please, like that’s going to shut her up,” Nine cuts in from where she occupies another armchair. She doesn’t sit in it as much as lie across it, legs hanging over the armrest. “Besides, you know. I’d like to know what’s up with y’all, too.” Daphne snaps her gum, too, twisting to look at them better. Even Amita is nodding, and she has known both of them for longer than anyone else besides Lou.

As Tammy mumbles something along the lines of  _ Well, that’s not really fair, _ Debbie leans forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and looking around at everyone. “Tammy and I have known each other for years,” she starts off, and the blonde is heaving a sigh next to her that sounds a lot like a frustrated hiss of her name. “We used to run a lot of jobs together and we were good friends. After she stopped working with us, got married and had Derek, I’d still come by and visit. Occasionally. My trial happened while she was pregnant with Tyler, and she came to see me twice before I was released. Then Lou and I recruited her for the Met and we reconnected. After the job, she brought up some… feelings, and that’s it.”

There is a long, drawn-out silence. Debbie leans back again, her shoulder brushing Tammy’s as she sinks back into the couch cushions. The blonde is decidedly not looking at anyone, but Debbie surveys the room: Rose wide-eyed and Amita looking perhaps a little disappointed, and Daphne frowning like something doesn’t quite add up. Nine’s face doesn’t change at all. Constance opens her mouth and closes it again, as if she’s trying to figure out what she wants to say.

And then there is Lou.

So far, she’s been decidedly quiet. Uninterested, even, although Debbie knows her well enough to recognize the slightest tension in her shoulders that says she’s listening. Now, though, she straightens up and rolls her eyes, tossing her hair back so her bangs don’t cover the action up entirely. “You’re missing a lot of details there, Deb,” she points out. Everybody’s gaze flashes to her all at once, and Debbie can feel the way Tammy stiffens next to her. If there’s one person who knows the full story, it’s Lou.

“Am not,” she counters. Tries to convey with her eyes to her best friend to keep her mouth shut, which doesn’t work even a little bit. Lou is good at reading Debbie’s facial expressions, but she doesn’t often comply with what Debbie actually  _ wants. _

If possible, the next eye roll is even more exaggerated than usual. “So you’re not even going to tell them about the first time?” she shoots back.

Everything is quiet, still, and Debbie mostly wishes she were anywhere but here. Preferably somewhere with Tammy and none of the others, where neither of them would have to be submitted to this. Then, on a low gasp, Constance drops down to sit on the floor by Lou’s feet. “The  _ first time?” _ she asks in a hushed tone, awestruck.

Lou has commanded everyone’s attention now; she looks around at each face turned in her direction, holding the quiet while they wait with bated breath. Looks at every single person in the room  _ except _ for Debbie and Tammy, who are mostly frozen in place and cannot even manage to look at each other. Debbie is acutely aware of the way Tammy’s sleeve brushes softly at her upper arm every time she breathes, and focuses on syncing her breaths to the other woman’s.

“It all started almost twenty years ago,” she begins mysteriously, and  _ oh, _ she’s starting from the  _ beginning. _ “Like Debbie said, we were all friends, running jobs together, the three of us. Until one day,  _ someone _ decided she needed to rescue Tammy from this guy who wouldn’t back off. Enter… the fake girlfriend plot. You know, hold hands, make out a bit, get  _ just _ touchy enough that he gets the drift. Worked like a charm.” Debbie has all but forgotten some things about that night – what bar they were at, what the guy looked like – but others stand out in vivid detail. Like how readily Tammy went along with the impromptu plan. How she tasted like rum and Coke, and how her hands tugged Debbie closer when there wasn’t much closer to get, and how she let Debbie press her back into a bathroom stall later, when the guy was long gone. But Lou does not leave much time to dwell on this, instead carrying on, “This turned into a go-to solution for a while, and then… then it started happening for other reasons. They’d get a little bit tipsy, or a job would turn out really well, or they’d both just be lonely, and so they’d hook up. Keep in mind, we were all  _ living together _ at this time. The fact that they thought I didn’t know is  _ mad.” _

“The kids are probably done getting the seeds out of those pumpkins,” says Tammy suddenly. She stands abruptly and brushes non-existent dirt off her jeans. Her cheeks are very pink, and she won’t look anyone in the eye. “I’m going to go help them carve the faces. Lou, if you  _ must _ keep going, please at  _ least _ keep your voice down,” she adds over her shoulder, already halfway out of the room. She’s resigned, clearly knows that Lou has a good memory and is apparently intent on rehashing the last almost-two decades. Debbie should get up, follow her girlfriend back to the kitchen table and help the kids with their pumpkins, but her muscles don’t seem to remember how to push themselves into movement.

“So how long was this going on for?” asks Rose. She’s paused altogether on the sewing job mid-seam, a telltale sign that she’s paying close attention. 

“God, for years. Until Tammy met Michael.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell ghost stories instead? It’s Halloween,” tries Debbie when she finds her tongue. There is a little bit of a sharper edge to her voice here, brought on by the memories Lou is dragging up.  _ You’re acting weird, _ Tammy told her once, hands on her hips. She’d gotten back home after a date with Michael and the happy, buoyant energy she’d carried through the door had disappeared entirely.  _ Are you jealous of him or something? We aren’t… You and me, we weren’t anything. _ She had stepped tantalizingly closer then, but her eyes were closed off, like a film had slid over all her features, like she was far away suddenly.  _ I really like him, Debbie. I wish you could just be happy for me. _

“Please. The scariest thing is how dumb you’ve both been for the last twenty years.” Lou waves a hand dismissively and barrels onward, though she takes the hint and skates over the Michael thing relatively quickly. “So everything just kind of stopped, and Tammy got married, and Debbie and I just kept doing jobs. Then Debbie got arrested, and I know Tammy visited her a couple times.” She glances swiftly to Debbie, who looks stoically straight ahead. Those visits were awkward at best, and she doesn’t want to bring them back to the forefront of her mind. “Then she got out and we started working on the Met job, and we recruited Tammy because she was  _ obviously _ the perfect fence. Deb’s going to try to take credit, but I’m the one who suggested her,” she adds loftily, leaning forward to accept an echoing high five from Constance. “So if Tammy admitted she had feelings after the job, it’s only because  _ I _ took that step so they’d reconnect, because  _ I _ knew there had been feelings there all along.”

Debbie lets her mind wander to that, a decidedly better option than thinking about the dreary months between Tammy meeting her future husband and Tammy moving out. She thinks about walking Tammy out of Lou’s loft to her car, thinks about Tammy turning to face her when she’d closed the trunk on her suitcase and saying in a very straightforward manner,  _ I’m going to kiss you now. _ Thinks about how her breath caught in her throat as Tammy moved in closer to her, and the intoxicating taste of her there with Debbie’s hands in her hair and her back against the typical suburban housewife SUV, and when she pulled back so her gaze flickered over Debbie’s entire face and how her fingers shook slightly when they brushed over Debbie’s cheekbone.  _ I only want to do this if we’re both all in, _ she said.  _ I mean it, Debbie. _

She pushes up from the couch purposefully in the silence that has fallen. “I’m going to help Tammy with the kids,” she announces, “and the pumpkins.” Nobody truly pays attention as she picks her way out of the room; all focus has settled on Lou again, and Amita asks the first of what is sure to be many follow-up questions in a hushed, excited tone.

Tammy glances up as she enters the kitchen, gaze softening immediately when she sees who it is. It’s the type of expression that makes everything inside Debbie feel like it has gone fuzzy and soft, too. “Are they still going?” she asks, wrinkling her nose in response to Debbie’s nod. “We should have known Lou couldn’t keep all that to herself for long, huh?”

“She likes a good story.” Debbie settles into the chair next to Tyler’s and reaches for the knife, letting him guide her through exactly what he wants. Maybe she is not naturally good with children, but being with Tammy makes her want to put forth at least some effort. It’s oddly nice, the swell in her chest when she notices that they seem to like her. Besides, it makes Tammy smile this gentle, secret little smile every single time, and Debbie likes that.

The others split off in the living room, taking turns in the bathroom to change and emerging dressed as superheroes, while Tammy sends the boys and Maggie upstairs to don their own costumes. Constance, Nine-Ball and the children have been tight-lipped about which costumes they selected for which people, claiming that the surprise is half the fun. Debbie is not familiar with superheroes, though she has sat through a couple of movies recently with the kids. Daphne is Black Widow, she knows that much, and Nine is Scarlet Witch – this knowledge comes a little bit from the outfit, and a little bit from remembering the things said on that shopping trip. She figures Constance’s costume out from her great attention to detail (or, truthfully, the girl leaving the bathroom in a bright yellow jacket and crowing, “Jubilee in the  _ house,” _ which sort of gives away the answer). She spies the big, bold number four on Rose’s costume and determines that one to be Invisible Woman; Amita makes her sit on the living room floor in front of the couch and begins to carefully straighten locks of her hair.

For the others, she has to ask. She leans against the wall near Derek when he comes back downstairs, his Iron Man mask flipped up so his freckled face is visible. “Who’s Amita?” she asks.

“Storm,” he answers promptly.

Debbie nods like this is obvious. “Storm,” she repeats. The bathroom door opens once more and this time it’s Lou, skin-tight light-washed jeans and a full-on cape, her hair still determinedly in her face as always. “And who’s she supposed to be?”

Her best friend raises an eyebrow so it disappears entirely behind her bangs. “Emma Frost. You need to brush up on your researching skills, Ocean.” She reaches for the bundle of Debbie’s costume and thrusts it at her next. “You’re up.”

The costume fits like a glove, honeycomb gold and dark blue, and Debbie pulls her hair back into a ponytail – as instructed by Tyler, who’s taking realism very seriously when it comes to getting costumes right. She asked him, when they watched the movie last week, if it was strange for her to dress as the Wasp if he was Antman; he told her in no uncertain terms that if  _ she _ found it weird, she could go as the  _ first _ Wasp, instead. She could only smile crookedly at that, letting the boy rest his head on her shoulder as he got sleepy towards the end of the movie. Now, while they wait for Tammy and her daughter, Amita affixes a set of wings at Debbie’s back.

Maggie appears first, all in black and white and pink. Tammy has spray-painted a pair of ballet flats blue and found matching ribbon to curl around the girl’s legs, and she is practically euphoric as she bounds down the stairs. Which leaves only Tammy herself for a long-awaited grand reveal – and she descends in bright, clear red and blue with a starburst at her chest, blonde hair flowing loose down around her shoulders. Looks incredible, predictably, the bodysuit hugging her hips and thighs.  _ Maybe _ Debbie’s breath catches at the sight of her, but she’s not about to admit that here, now, in front of everyone.

“You look, dare I say,  _ marvelous,” _ says Constance when Tammy reaches the ground floor, and then cracks up laughing. She adjusts the pink sunglasses perched atop her head when she gets herself under control. “Sorry, sorry. Captain Marvel suits you. We did good, kids.” And she high-fives each of them, grinning, one after the other down the line.

They look ridiculous, frankly, drawing attention to themselves as they step outside – three actual children and eight grown women, all dressed in Halloween costumes. Debbie likes to toe the line between being in the spotlight and blending entirely into the background, likes the ambiguous nature of finding that balance and being able to tip the scale in either direction as needed. She isn’t quite sure how she feels about this, the eyes following them once they turn off Tammy’s quiet cul de sac and onto a busier street.

The other kids trick-or-treating and their decidedly-casually-dressed parents eye them curiously, and as they group at the bottom of a long driveway so the kids can all go up on their own, one of the other parents glances to Tammy. “Who have we got here?” he asks. That’s the thing about the suburbs; even the people who seem to blend in at most times, don’t. This man knows Tammy because he lives on her street, or because he’s got a kid in the same grade as one of hers at the only elementary school in the vicinity, and he knows without bothering to think too hard about it that he does  _ not _ know any of the other adults with her.

“My book club,” answers Tammy smoothly, as if she has rehearsed the answer. Debbie wonders whether she has really spent time figuring out what the best response would be, or if she came up with it on the spot. Tammy has always been good at thinking on her feet. It’s what makes her a good fence, what made Debbie know she would be perfect for the Met heist once Lou brought up her name, what drew her back into Debbie’s life and allowed for  _ this _ to be the way her life is turning out. She marvels at that for a moment, the way she never thought settling down the way Tammy had would be how her future might line up, but here she is.

Maggie won’t let go of Tammy’s hand at the next house, dragging her right up to the front door because the decorations here are scarier but she still wants the candy. Debbie stands next to Lou at the foot of the driveway and nudges the blonde with her elbow. “Have anything to say for yourself?” she prompts.

“Sorry,” Lou shoots back unabashedly. It doesn’t sound particularly sincere; it’s more sarcastic than anything else. “I was right, though. You two were kind of idiots, waiting this long to admit it.”

Watching the edge of Lou’s cape flutter in a light gust of wind, Debbie shrugs. “Yeah, I guess we were.”

Tammy reaches for her hand later, lacing her fingers in between each of Debbie’s as they walk, and doesn’t let go until they reach the front door of her own house again. The others head out a couple at a time, and the kids sleepily crawl into bed, and then it’s just Debbie and Tammy, sitting on the couch with leftover Halloween candy and a movie playing that they don’t pay any attention to at all. Tammy’s thumb traces careful circles across Debbie’s knuckles. Upstairs, she peels the Halloween costume away from her girlfriend’s shoulders, lets Tammy smooth her own costume down past her hips, and presses Tammy back onto the mattress so she lingers above the blonde. When their tongues touch, Tammy tastes like chocolate.

Debbie smiles against Tammy’s lips, breathes in the smell of her shampoo, traces her palms over every curve and listens for the contented sigh beneath her. If this is settling down, she could get used to this.

**Author's Note:**

> day 5/7 of halloween, complete! i hope you liked this 4k word vomit or whatever.
> 
> comments and kudos make me happy! just if you have a moment. if you want to, you can follow me on twitter – @deboceans – where i will be posting convenient links to the next one-shots going up in this mini halloween-based series! thank you for reading!


End file.
